- Fanfic Bingo!

[mirabile-dictu.livejournal.com]

Inspired by the discussion of OTW at John Scalzi's blog, Ithiliana, Half Elf Lost, Kitsune13, and Cofax7 created the Anti-Fanfic Bingo card.

They have kindly permitted the OTW to use the card, and we'd like to ask all of you to come up with responses for the objections to fan fiction. Serious responses, funny responses, rude responses, heart-felt responses. Prose, poetry, icons, banners, art, vids -- any response at all! We ask that you stay on topic, but our hope is to create something fun and, well, educational.

You can see the entire Anti-Fanfic Bingo card here, but right now, let's focus on the top row:



How would you respond? Tell ComRel!

Graphic by the wonderful Ciderpress.

-- femmequixotic, bethbethbeth, ciderpress, bethbethbeth, mirabile_dictu, shrift, svmadelyn
Community Relations Committee

Comments

[elliemurasaki.livejournal.com]

Cont'd:

You owe the writers respect for creating an ORIGINAL (TM) world! Let the record state that the reason I have not fanficced a couple of Nora Roberts's trilogies is that I respect her enough to respect her request that no one write fanfic, not because I owe her respect for creating an original world. Or, for that matter, original characters.

You're acting like spoiled children! Some of us do, sometimes. (Some of us, unfortunately, are.) But that's a really bad comparison to make, because you know something, author? So are you. Go to your room and think about that.

Bad fans will make people not want to buy a writer's work! ...I can't think of a response for this. I need to have some idea of the rationale for a statement before I can attack it. I'm not seeing a rationale here. I'm not seeing any logical connection at all. Damn, there goes my blackout bingo.

You're raping me! Fanfic != sexual assault. If we're going to use a sex metaphor, fanfic is a wolf whistle that you-the-author might not even hear. (You-the-canon-Sue certainly doesn't hear it.) It's a vocal expression of appreciation. If it crosses the line into undesirability, that wasn't our intent.

It's trademark infringement! Trademark infringement...this is the same stupidity that means Diana Tregarde has to visit Five Banners Over Dallas, not Six Flags Over Texas, isn't it?

It's unethical! How so? I can see it being unethical to write Nora Roberts fanfic, but that's only because she did specifically request that we not do it. But the fact that I can understand why others might consider it unethical doesn't mean I consider it unethical myself.

It's plagiarism! No, plagiarism is claiming to be the sole creative impulse behind "To bed, or not to bed: that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the blinks and yawns of horrid tiredness, or to take arms against a sea of homework, and by opposing delay it". Particularly when it's really bleedin' obvious what a debt one owes to the person who, by setting the original words to paper, started off the process concluding in the writing of one's transformation of it.

It's totally different if you have a contract! Only in that it'll get me royalty checks.

Fanwriters are just like stalkers! ...bwuh?

Go ahead and write it if you must but don't put it on the internet for everybody to see! Go ahead and write your stories if you must, then, but don't publish them for everybody to see--wait, what's this now? Not publishing them would defeat a large part of the reason for writing them? Really...